And the most secretive and powerful of all was Hideki Suma.
A light drizzle fell as Suma passed through the gate and walked the gravel path toward the Shokonsha shrine. It was well after midnight, but he could see his way by the lights of Tokyo that reflected from the low clouds. He paused under a large tree and looked around the grounds inside the high walls. The only sign of life was a colony of pigeons nestled under the disks that crowned the curved roof.
Satisfied that he would not be studied by an observer, Hideki Suma went through the ritual of washing his hands in a stone basin and rinsing his mouth with a small ladle of water. Then he entered the outer shrine hall and met the chief priest, who was awaiting his arrival. Suma made an offering at the oratory and removed a sheaf of papers wrapped in a tissued scroll from the inside pocket of his raincoat. He gave them to the priest, who laid them on the altar.
A small bell was rung to summon Suma’s specific deity or kami, and then they clasped their hands in prayer. After a short purification ceremony, Suma spoke quietly with the priest for a minute, retrieved the scroll, and left the shrine as inconspicuously as he’d arrived.
The stress of the past three days fell from him like glistening water over a garden fall. Suma felt rejuvenated by the mystical power and guidance of his kami. His sacred quest to purify Japanese culture from the poison of Western influences while protecting the gains of financial empire was guided by divine power.
Anyone catching a glimpse of Suma through the misty rain would have quickly ignored him. He looked quite ordinary in workman’s overalls and a cheap raincoat. He wore no hat, and his hair was a great shock of brushed-back white. The black mane common to almost all Japanese men and women had lightened at an early age, which gave Suma a look much older than his forty-nine years. By Western standards he was short, by Japanese ideals he was slightly on the tall side, standing at 170 centimeters.
It was only when you looked into his eyes that he seemed different from his native cousins. The irises were of a magnetic indigo blue, the legacy, possibly, of an early Dutch trader or English sailor. A frail youth, he’d taken up weight lifting when he was fifteen and labored with cold determination until he had transformed his body into a muscled sculpture. His greatest satisfaction was not in his strength but the molding of flesh and sinews into his own creation.
His bodyguard-chauffeur bowed and locked the heavy bronze gate after him. Moro Kamatori, Suma’s oldest friend and his chief aide, and his secretary, Toshie Kudo, were sitting patiently in a backward-facing seat of a black custom-built Murmoto limousine powered by a twelve-cylinder 600-horsepower engine.
Toshie was much taller than her native sisters. Willowy, with long legs, jet-black hair falling to her waist, flawless skin enhanced by magical coffee-brown eyes, she looked as if she’d stepped out of a James Bond movie. But unlike the exotic beauties who hung on fiction’s bon vivant master spy, Toshie possessed a high order of intellectual ability. Her IQ bordered on 165, and she operated at full capacity on both sides of the brain.
She did not look up as Suma entered the car. Her mind was focused on a compact computer that sat in her shapely lap.
Kamatori was speaking over a telephone. His intellect may not have been on a level with Toshie’s, but he was meticulous and deviously clever at managing Suma’s secretive projects. He was especially gifted at behind-the-scenes finance, pulling the strings and fronting for Suma, who preferred to isolate himself from public view.
Kamatori had a stolid, resolute face flanked by oversized ears. Beneath heavy black brows, the dark lifeless eyes peered through a pair of thick-lensed rimless glasses. No smile ever crossed his tight lips. He was a man without emotions or convictions. Fanatically loyal to Suma, Kamatori’s master talent was hunting human game. If someone, no matter how wealthy or high in government bureaucracy, presented an obstacle to Suma’s plans, Kamatori would shrewdly dispatch them so it seemed an accident or the blame could be fixed on an opposing party.
Kamatori kept a ledger of his killings with notes detailing each event. Over the course of twenty-five years the tally came to 237.
He rang off and set the receiver in an armrest cradle and looked at Suma. “Admiral Itakura at our embassy in Washington. His sources have confirmed the White House is aware the explosion was nuclear and originated with the Divine Star.”
Suma gave a stoic shrug. “Has the President launched a formal protest with Prime Minister Junshiro?”
“The American government has remained strangely silent,” answered Kamatori. “The Norwegians and British, however, are making noises about the loss of their ships.”
“But nothing from the Americans.”
“Only sketchy reports in their news media.”
Suma leaned forward and tapped Toshie’s nyloned knee with his forefinger. “A photo, please, of the explosion site.”
Toshie nodded respectfully and programmed the necessary code into the computer. In less than thirty seconds a colored photo rolled out of a fax machine built into the divider wall separating the driver from the passenger compartment. She passed it to Suma, who turned up the interior car lights and took a magnifying glass from Kamatori.
“The enhanced infrared photo was taken an hour and a half ago during a pass by our Akagi spy satellite,” explained Toshie.
Suma peered through the glass without speaking for a few moments. Then he looked up questioningly. “A nuclear hunter-killer submarine and an Asian junk? The Americans are not acting as I expected. Odd they didn’t send half their Pacific fleet.”
“Several naval ships are steaming toward the explosion point,” said Kamatori, “including a NUMA ocean survey vessel.”
“What about space surveillance?”
“American intelligence has already gathered extensive data from their Pyramider spy satellites and SR-Ninety aircraft.”
Suma tapped a small object in the photo with a finger. “A submersible floating between the two vessels. Where did that come from?”
Kamatori peered over Suma’s finger at the photograph. “Certainly not the junk. It must have come from the submarine.”
“They won’t find any sunken remains of the Divine Star, ” Suma muttered. “She must have been blown into atoms.” He tossed the photo back to Toshie. “A readout, please, of auto carriers transporting our products, their current status and destinations.”
Toshie looked up at him over her monitor as if she’d read his mind. “I have the data you requested, Mr. Suma.”
“Yes?”
“The Divine Moon finished off-loading her auto cargo last night in Boston,” she reported, reading the Japanese characters on the display screen. “The Divine Water… she docked eight hours ago in the Port of Los Angeles and is off-loading now.”
“Any others?”
“There are two ships in transport,” Toshie continued. “The Divine Sky is scheduled to dock in New Orleans within eighteen hours, and the Divine Lake is five days out of Los Angeles.”
“Perhaps we should signal the ships at sea to divert to ports outside the United States,” said Kamatori. “American agents may be alerted to search for signs of radiation.”
“Who is our undercover agent in Los Angeles?” asked Suma.
“George Furukawa directs your secret affairs in the western states.”
Suma leaned back, obviously relieved. “Furukawa is a man. He will be alert to any hardening procedure.” He turned to Kamatori, who was speaking into the phone. “Divert the Divine Sky to Jamaica until we have more data, but allow the Divine Lake to proceed to Los Angeles.”